


Echoes

by griimdarks



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, but i have a weakness for this de rolo in whitestone, spoilers for the whitestone arc and beyond, this started as me trying to procrastinate studying for my exams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:08:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griimdarks/pseuds/griimdarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy was used to picking up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

Many ghosts walked the halls of Whitestone Castle. Some nights Percy wondered if he was one of them.

It was a bittersweet place to be. Memories of children running together, memories of family and happiness and togetherness interrupted by splashes of blood and corpses slumped against walls. 

While they waited for Winter’s Crest, Percy and Cassandra explored their home with Vox Machina in tow, a respectful distance away. The Briarwoods had repurposed many of the rooms for storage, but one of the biggest slaps in the face was when they discovered their parents’ bedroom filled with the Briarwoods’ clothes, Delilah’s trinkets in the jewellery box Mother had inherited from Grandmother. It gave the de Rolo siblings great pleasure to toss clothes into the raging fireplace and tear away the many portraits of the haughty couple that adorned the room. Percy emptied the contents of the jewellery box onto the floor; fair game for anyone who wanted it. 

Vex picked it up. “We’ll sell it,” she said. “Give the money to your treasury.”

Percy just shrugged. So long as they got it out of his sight.

They found scraps of old family portraits; combined with the one Cassandra had saved, they now had a full picture of the de Rolo family. They spread out the pieces in an empty room - Percy thought it might have been Vesper’s room, Vesper wanted the room where the windows faced the sunrise - and he caught Scanlan giving the pieces a funny look. Scanlan’s funny looks tended to be accompanied by the screams of dying soldiers and raging fires in the background, but Percy was too tired to care. 

He caught the twins eyeing the slender, graceful figures of his parents, arm in arm and smiling gently. Vax looked like he’d just been stabbed in the gut and someone was twisting the knife. Vex was staring very pointedly out the window. 

Percy could not bear to see his own painted self. Bright eyes, darker hair, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Oliver was standing next to him, a mischievous grin on his face; Percy remembered him muttering a joke that had half the family in tears while trying to stay still for the poor painter.

Pike had knelt by the scraps, her divine form shimming slightly. She looked at the painted figures, no doubt noticing the many lines on both surviving de Rolo’s faces, the gaunt and hollow looks that remained in their eyes. 

“They're very beautiful, your parents,” Pike said gently. She brushed a golden hand over his parents’ forms. “You both have your mother’s smile.”

Pike always knew what to say. It was an art form, no doubt.

Percy refused to sleep in his room, or any bedroom in Whitestone. They stumbled into his old room, now used as a library of some sort with books piled across two shelves, a table and the floor. There was still darkish stain across the carpet, and a dent in the wall just above it. It could have been a clumsy mistake when they moved the shelves in, or the reminder of a nightmare, a head bashed against a wall.

No one mentioned it.

So no one argued when Percy dragged a mattress into his old workshop and slept by the comfort of a forge, his gun under his pillow. His workshop had been used quite a bit - probably by Ripley,  _ may she burn in Hell _ , Percy thought, ripping her notes into tiny little pieces and blowing them into the forge. Percy liked being alone, but he always seemed to have company. 

Cassandra would come down sometimes, professing that she was hiding from some official business and she just wanted to drink her coffee in peace. It reminded him of happier times, when Cass would hide from her boring instructors when all she really wanted to do was sharpen her knives. Pike would visit, telling him about Sarenrae’s temple. In this form she bathed the room in golden light, and she’d always visit when he was getting ready to sleep.

“I’ll keep watch for you,” she promised, and it was easier to close his eyes when the room was as bright as midday.

Grog and Scanlan always came down with ale and distractions and when Keyleth visited it was to find a quiet place to read, or try her hand at potion making. Vex always came down with food and Vax came down with the long evening shadows, sitting on his mattress and picking at a fingernail with a dagger.

Winter’s Crest came and went, and Percy felt like his wounds were beginning to scab over, that the stitches were beginning to heal.

When Vex died, he felt the wounds tear, felt the blood begin to pool up once again. Vax’s punch ripped out every last stitch, but Percy felt strangely fine. He was used to picking up the pieces anyway.

So Percy retreated to his workshop once more. The list of places he could hide was slowly dwindling, and the Whitestone workshop did not have a steel reinforced door.

Later that evening, the setting sun threw long shadows down the staircase to the workshop. Percy descended with the sigh, shutting the door with its comforting  _ thud _ , only to find Vax perched on his mattress again.

“How do you sleep down here?” Vax said, like he hadn’t punched Percy in the face twelve hours ago. “It’s so dusty.”

Percy just shrugged, and started stoking the forge.

“I guess the warmth does it, then,” Vax started picking at the mattress.

“Can’t sleep?” Percy offered. He made sure to stay out of arm’s reach.

If Vax noticed, he didn’t say anything. “You could say that.” 

The fire threw haphazard shadows across the walls, and Vax looked like he wanted to melt into one.

“Did you eat today?” Vax asked suddenly. 

“Yes, I was there at dinner,” Percy said evenly, keeping his eyes on his work. Dinner was tasteless to him, and he remembered sneaking most of his food to Trinket.

“Yes, Percival you were there, but did you eat?”

This was a level of concern usually found in Keyleth, not Vax, and Percy was starting to get worried. “Vax, are you feeling ok?”

“Yeah, perfectly fine,” Vax said, with the air of someone who was definitely not fine.

Percy almost made the mistake of asking if something had happened - then again, what hadn’t happened? Maybe the stress of the past few days was getting to him, between the dragons, Vex nearly dying and Vax apparently signing his soul away.

“You should probably get some rest,” Percy offered, holding the words out like an olive branch.

Vax didn’t accept it - but he didn’t reject it, either. “Come on, Percival,” He stood up like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Let’s both get some rest.”

“My bed is right here, you know,”

“This dusty old thing? No, you can have my room.”

“Vax-”   


“ _ Percy. _ ” 

A moment passed, lost in glares, and Vax looked away first. “When we were younger,” he said. “Mom didn’t have a lot. She only had two mattresses for the three of us, but Vex and I were tiny so sharing it wasn’t a problem. Then Father took us to Syngorn, and he kept us in separate rooms - mine was on the other end of the floor to Vex’s, and back then she couldn’t sneak to save her life.” A corner of Vax’s mouth quirked. “Neither could I, but loneliness is a good teacher. I’m going to sleep in her room, so why don’t you sleep on a comfortable bed in a comfortable room, with a pair of twins who wake at the slightest sound on one side, and a goliath on the other.”

“You make a compelling argument,” Percy said, after a moment.

“After you,” and Vax swept an arm towards the door.

Part way up the stairs and Vax stopped, staring at the floor. “Something happened,” he said, after a moment. “I don’t know how to talk to her.”

_ Her _ could have been Vex, or Pike, but something told him it was Keyleth.

“I’ll go,” Percy said. 

“She’s upset.”

“Did you upset her?”

“Yeah,”

A pause. “Did you hurt her?”

A longer pause. “I think I did.”

Percy sighed. “I didn’t take you to be a heartbreaker, Vax,”

Vax melted into the shadows at that.

“You can’t run away from all your problems, you know,” Percy said, to the now seemingly empty staircase. Somewhere in the distance, a raven cackled.

Percy remembered when Whitney fell in love with a idiot noble boy. One good thing about her broken heart was the sibling solidarity that followed; they’d all cram into her room after bedtime, with smuggled cakes from teatime and extra blankets and plans for revenge that made her smile. The nostalgia hit hard, seeing as Keyleth had taken residence in Whitney’s old room.

Percy waited for a moment, ear to the door, hearing sobs muffled through a pillow.

“Keyleth?” Percy called. “May I come in?”

The sobs stopped abruptly. “No.”

“Please?”

“Go away,” And the sobs started again.

Percy hoped he wasn’t overstepping, and pushed the door open. “Keyleth,” he said gently, closing the door behind him. “I just want to talk-”

“I said, go away!” Percy caught a glimpse of her sitting on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest before she moved. Her hand curled around the nearest object, a small vase that he remembered giving to Whitney one day, and she flung it in his direction without looking.

Keyleth had impeccable aim sometimes, even if her heart wasn’t in it. The vase was small and fragile and shattered against the arm Percy had raised to protect his face; a piece of it embedding itself into his forearm.

“Oh,” Percy said, as blood began to soak into his sleeve.

Keyleth looked up - she was already a tearstained mess from whatever had just transpired - and saw the unintended consequences of her outburst.

“No, no, it's just a scratch-” and Keyleth started to shatter in front of him.

He sat next to her, keeping his injured arm out of the way. Keyleth looked up and reached for his wrist with a shaky hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” Percy said gently. Keyleth responded with the beginnings of a Cure Wounds spell that failed when she hiccuped one of the words. She got it on the second try, and Percy felt the warm of the healing spell flow through his veins even as Keyleth let out a shuddering breath.

“Sorry,” she whispered. 

“You have very good aim,” Percy said mildly. “You could pick up archery. Give Vex a run for her money.”

That earned him a tiny smile, at least.

When Whitney was heartbroken she leaned against a pillow, somehow maintaining composure while crying her eyes out. Keyleth was remarkably similar, somehow holding herself together now that Percy wasn’t bleeding profusely.

“Vax said you were upset,” Percy offered.

“Vax punched you in the face, didn’t he.” Keyleth stared at a patch of the carpet, wringing her hands.

“I did almost kill his sister,” Percy said it casually, but each word was like swallowing broken glass.

“I had to tell her,” Keyleth said, sounding hollow. “That she died. That her brother swore his life to a God for her.”

After a moment, Percy put an arm around her shoulder. Keyleth shut her eyes and more tears began to fall.

“I can’t stop thinking about death, Percy,” she whispered. “All those people who melted and froze in Emon. Vex, in that tomb.” 

“Gloominess doesn’t suit you, darling,” Percy leaned his head against hers, and he felt her chuckle.

“I feel gloomy, though.”

“Vax said he hurt you,”

“Vax didn’t hurt me, I probably hurt him.”

“Wow. Romance is complicated.”

“It really wasn’t that romantic.” Keyleth paused. “I hate this, Percy, I really do. I hate thinking, I hate these dreams I keep having.”

“What kinds of dreams?”

“The happy kind,” and she let out a sob. “Where we beat the dragons, and go back to Greyskull Keep. I complete my Aramente and become the next headmaster. And then I get the  _ honour _ of watching you all grow old and die.”

Percy froze, remembering Vax’s sudden concern at his wellbeing. Sometimes Percy hated how much he’d read, how much he’d learnt; humans and goliaths didn’t live very long.

“I told Vax, and of course he ran away, what kind of a thing is that to tell someone who watched their sister die?”

“Vax always runs away,” Percy said. “You could have told him that Scanlan took a dump in his bed and he would have left the room just as quick.”

“Percy,” Keyleth said. “I’ve never really had friends, or even someone that I could call a brother, and I don’t think I could stand watching any of you die again.”

Percy paused, taking one of her hands. “Everything is really, really hazy after the Briarwoods took over. I don’t remember most of it, and maybe that’s a good thing. But I think I’ve had my fair share of dealings with death, and I really want a break from it all.”

“Well Vax just signed away his soul to the goddess of death, so I don’t think either of us are free from it now.”

They both snorted at that.

Percy reached into his pocket and pulled out something small. He rolled the bullet between his fingers one last time, before pressing it into Keyleth’s hand. “It was the first one I ever made. When I fired it, I nearly dropped my gun in shock, and it took a chunk out of a tree.”

“That’s not very nice to the tree,” Keyleth murmured.

“It was a very big tree. I don’t think it minded very much.”

Keyleth slipped the bullet into her pocket.

“Not to be gloomy,” Percy said. “But don’t forget me.”

“Never,” Keyleth said.

* * *

Keyleth always wondered what she'd done to get a friend like Percy. 

She was an only child, she was used to being by herself. But sometimes the twins would squabble and chat, her chest would get tight and she just  _ had _ to look away.

The Ashari weren't big on physical affection, which was why Keyleth was. Percy tended to be the only person receptive of her hugs, and on nights like these where her tears were still fresh on her cheeks she wondered if this was what it was like to have a brother.

When the tears finally ceased, Percy's breathing was slow and even and she realised he’d managed to fall asleep while holding her. It was a task trying to lay him down without waking him, but Keyleth managed in the end. She draped a blanket over him and he shifted, curling up like a cat.

It was a lie to say Keyleth wasn't worried already. She saw the portrait, she saw Percy's youthful, smiling face. It would have been painted not long before the Briarwoods took over. 

And now Percy looked older, wearier, with more lines on his face than someone his age should have. He'd stare off into space far too often, he barely slept and lately he wasn't eating much either.

Keyleth took out the bullet he gave her, turned it over. It was old and patchy and dented, and she closed her hand around it tightly.

Percy always wore that birdskull around his neck now. Keyleth fashioned a long vine, tied it around the bullet and hung it around her neck. 

If Percy could make promises, then so could she.


End file.
